The City of the Silent is a poem of 500 lines written
by William Gilmore Simms in November 1850.
It was published by Walker & James in Charleston, SC that
same year. The cover lists a specific
date, November 19, which was the date that Simms delivered the poem at
the consecration of the new Magnolia Cemetery on the banks of the Cooper River, just north of Charleston. Although it was being
published in December of 1850, and despite the fact the cover notes the date of
publication as 1850, the work was released as a pamphlet in February of 1851.[1]
...

Throughout his life, William
Gilmore Simms was deeply invested in researching and interpreting the history
of the American Revolution and was particularly concerned with promoting the
participation of his native South Carolina in that conflict. As evidenced by his biographies of Francis
Marion and Nathanael Greene, his series of epic romances of the Revolution
largely set in South Carolina, and his emphasis on the Revolution in his The History of South Carolina, Simms’s
understanding of South Carolina’s role in the conflict was one of patriotism
and heroic self-sacrifice. ...